Beyond The Tomorrow Mountains (2 page)

“I wasn’t arrested for that,” protested Brek. “Oh, I was accused of it later, but not until I’d balked at setting a trap for somebody else.”

Noren sat down on the couch, offering a place to Brek, who after slight hesitation joined him. “You’ve gotten to know Stefred, and you’ve learned that he was sincere when he told you that it’s better for a heretic to be trapped than to be caught accidentally when there are no Technicians around to protect him from his fellow villagers,” Noren said. The High Law required anyone convicted of heresy to be turned over to the Scholars unharmed; but without Technicians to enforce this, there was real peril, for people who blasphemed against the Prophecy—or worse, against the Mother Star itself—were deeply despised by villagers and were occasionally murdered.

“I know Stefred tries to suppress heresy without hurting anybody,” Brek agreed. “I know he doesn’t torture or kill those who won’t recant. But I didn’t know it
then
.”

“So the second time, you defied him openly and were brought to trial for it?”

“Yes. Originally I was charged only with disobeying orders, but when the Council of Technicians asked me why I’d done it—well, I told them. From then on it was a full-scale heresy trial, though not much like the farce you went through with that self-righteous village council. Afterward, during the inquisition, the emphasis was on what I believe, not how I’d acted.”

“Was it rough?” Noren inquired, knowing that it had been, and that talking about it would help to heal the wounds.

“No rougher than I deserved,” Brek answered grimly. “It seemed ironic the way the punishment fit the crime: not heresy, which is no real crime at all, but the part I’d played in your conviction. You see, there was a time when they let me think they’d broken you.”

“Stefred told me,” said Noren. The stress of a heretic’s inquisition was not intended as punishment, and Brek must be made to realize that. “I’d convinced you that I’d never recant, no matter what they did; you honestly believed that I could hold out despite the rumors that nobody ever has. So they showed you films of my recantation—edited films, the worst parts—without any comment at all, and then they locked you up to think it over.”

In agony, Brek confessed, “I almost cracked up, Noren. I hadn’t even known that you’d been recaptured! I’d been clinging to the hope that you’d escaped, that I hadn’t really brought you any harm. But after those films, I could only think that heretics must be subjected to something more terrible than either of us imagined. I knew you wouldn’t have given in to save your life, or even to spare yourself pain, at least not beforehand—”

“Neither would you,” Noren interrupted. “That’s why it was done: to prove that you wouldn’t.”

“To Stefred?”

“No. He was already sure; if he hadn’t been, he’d never have risked using that kind of pressure. His aim was to prove it to
you
.”

“But Noren,” Brek admitted unhappily, “I wasn’t sure at all! I was shaking so hard I could hardly stand when I was taken to see him again. I didn’t know how I’d answer until I heard my own voice.”

“That’s the point. Stefred knew you weren’t going to crack—but you didn’t, not till the moment came. And you needed to know. You wouldn’t have felt right about recanting if you hadn’t been shown that you could have held out if you’d chosen to.”

Brek nodded slowly, “That’s true. He never did try to force me to do anything against my will! I got the feeling that he respected me for defying him, even for disobeying his orders in the first place; I just wish I’d done it sooner.” Bowing his head, he added miserably, “Nothing can change the fact that you’d be free now if I had.”

Noren regarded him, concerned. This must be settled quickly, for his main task was to bring Brek face to face with a more difficult dilemma. “Brek,” he asked seriously, “are you sorry you became a heretic? Do you regret speaking out against the Prophecy and the High Law when you were tried?”

“Of course not. They wanted me to say I was during the ceremony, but I drew the line there and was pronounced impenitent, though I was warned that that’ll affect what becomes of me.” He faced Noren with returning pride. “I don’t care! I recanted because they proved that the High Law is necessary to keep people alive on this planet until the Prophecy can be fulfilled, but I’m not sorry for having challenged it.”

“That isn’t what I mean,” Noren said. “I refused to fake penitence, too, and as a matter of fact that’s what Stefred hoped we’d do. The official script we were offered was designed to give us the satisfaction of rejecting it. But are you sorry all this happened, that you’ve been told secrets that will keep you confined here in the Inner City for the rest of your life?”

“No,” Brek declared. “It—it’s worth whatever comes, I guess, to know the truth.”

“Then don’t you suppose it’s worth it for me? Truth was what I cared most about, what I set out to find, and I couldn’t have found it back in the village.”

Brek stared at him. “I haven’t looked at it that way. I thought only of your being imprisoned.” He glanced around the room, with its comfortable though austere furnishings and its breathtaking view, for the first time aware of the strangeness of a prisoner’s being left unguarded in such a place. “What’s it like, Noren? I’ve been told nothing.”

Noren hesitated. He remembered only too well how it felt to be told nothing: to kneel on the hot shimmering pavement and hear the grim sentence,
Perpetual confinement, subject to such disciplines as we shall impose.
And to know that despite the Scholars’ kindness, that sentence was no more a lie than any of the earlier and more frightening warnings. “It’s hard to accept at first,” he said frankly, “but not much like what you’re expecting. You’ll be surprised.” This was not the time to mention that some of the surprises would be pleasant, since for someone in Brek’s position the wished-for things were the hardest to accept of all.

“Stefred said I’d be equal to it,” Brek reflected.

“He tells everyone that. He means it, too, because no one gets this far who isn’t. People who don’t qualify rarely get past the inquisition phase.”

“Qualify? That’s an odd way to put it.”

“You didn’t know you were being tested?”

“Well—well, yes, at some points. It was pretty clear that they wouldn’t have let me in on any secrets if I’d been willing to recant under threat, or if I’d accepted the bribe they offered.”

“It’s more complicated than that. There are still secrets to learn, Brek. So far you’ve not heard the most important one. They think I’m the best person to enlighten you.” Noren smiled, trying to seem reassuring, though he still found it incredible that he should tutor Brek: Brek, who was nearly two years older than he, who’d been born a Technician, trained in electronics instead of farming, and whom he had once addressed as “sir!”

“You enlightened me to start with,” Brek told him. “I might never have known I was a heretic if it hadn’t been for what you said at your trial.”

“That’s why you were sent to observe it,” said Noren levelly.

“You mean Stefred
knew
how I’d react? But then why—” He broke off, appalled. “Noren, was I led into a trap, as you were? Was the whole thing planned?”

“Yes. From the beginning.” Pausing again, Noren wondered what tactics to pursue. There were no hard-and-fast rules, but he must proceed careful, he knew; he must cushion the shock. Brek must figure out as much as he could for himself.

Brek’s eyes were anguished. “I’d come to trust them.”

“Why?” Noren asked. “You’ve known all along that Scholars watch anyone suspected of having heretical ideas.”

“They don’t like the way things are any better than we do, though,” Brek asserted. “They don’t want to keep machines away from the villagers, and they don’t want to hide their knowledge; they’re doing it only because they have no choice. And as for being venerated as High Priests—well, they hate it.”

“All of them? Or just Stefred?”

“Stefred’s the only one I’ve ever really talked to, I suppose. But in the dreams—”

“In the dreams you shared the First Scholar’s recorded memories and you knew what he believed, what the other Founders believed; you knew that they never sought power. Yet they lived long ago. What’s to prove that all their successors are like them? What’s to say some aren’t out for personal gain, as you claimed at your trial?”

“Well, I—” Brek stopped, frowning. “
You
weren’t at
my
trial.”

“I’ve heard the transcript of it.” Slowly, aware that having broached the key issue, he must say something more direct. Noren added, “I’ve also dreamed those dreams a second time, Brek, and they’re—different. There are things in the recordings that only Scholars are permitted to know.”

“Then how do you know them?”

Noren drew breath, his heart pounding. The most painful part of his job could be put off no longer. “I am a Scholar now, Brek,” he admitted steadily. “I don’t wear the robe, but I’m entitled to.”

Stunned, Brek recoiled from him, then rose and walked away. “I’ve been naive,” he declared dully. “Before revealing the truth they offered me further training in exchange for unqualified submission, and I turned them down… would they have gone
that
far if they’d wanted me enough?” With a bitter laugh he added, “You’ve a sharper mind than I have; you’ll be useful to them. I don’t wonder you could set your own price.”

Fury spread in a hot wave through Noren, but he kept his face impassive. Brek couldn’t be blamed. It occurred to him that Stefred would have foreseen this, that his own levelheadedness was no doubt being evaluated; the challenges of the training period were at times no less demanding than the qualifying ones. And if he failed to meet this one, it was Brek who would be hurt.

“My recantation was as sincere as yours.” he said quietly, “and I knew no more of what was in store for me than you did. You see, the biggest secret—the one that was edited out of the dreams—concerns the scheme of succession. The status of Scholar is neither sold nor inherited; it is earned. No man or woman attains it whose trustworthiness is unproven. If you doubt that, remember that you could not have knelt to Stefred and the others, even ceremonially, if there’d been any question in your mind about their honesty.”

Brek turned and for a long moment appraised Noren in silence, noticing the lines of weariness in his face, marks that made him seem older than his years. “There’s no question about yours,” he said finally. “I don’t understand everything yet, but one thing’s clear: somehow they recognized that, even in a former heretic, and bestowed rank and power where it was deserved.” Approaching the couch where Noren still sat motionless, he continued, “I never knelt to Stefred in private, at least not after my arrest. While I hated him I ignored the conventions, and then later I sensed that he disliked them as much as I. Before the crowd I did it simply in honor of what he stood for. But I kneel to you, sir, as I now have new cause to beg your forgiveness.” He dropped to his knees as was customary in addressing a Scholar, not subserviently but with dignity, his eyes meeting Noren’s without flinching.

“No!” exclaimed Noren hastily, sliding to the floor himself and gripping Brek’s outstretched hands. “Not to me, and never again to Stefred. And you don’t call me ‘sir,’ either. Those customs don’t apply; we’re equals.”

“Stefred’s acknowledged me his equal in all the ways that matter. If Scholars must pass some special test of worthiness, that makes them all the more entitled to the courtesy due their rank. Do you think I’d want such status myself?”

“You have it whether you want it or not,” said Noren gently, “since you too have earned it.”

Brek drew back with incredulous dismay. “Scholar rank? But that’s awful; it can’t possibly work like that! I wouldn’t have recanted if I’d known there’d be any such reward.”

“Nor would the rest of us; that’s one reason we weren’t told.”

“The rest of us… there are others?”

“All the others, even Stefred, when he was young! He wasn’t born a Scholar; no one is. Scholars’ children are given up for adoption. All candidates prove themselves in the same way.”

Outraged, Brek persisted, “You mean the whole system’s a sham—those chosen must demonstrate their outlook toward this setup, with all its evils, by humbly submitting to a ceremony of recantation?”

“No,” Noren assured him. “Not by recantation, but by unrepented heresy.”

*
 
*
 
*

It was past noon, and there was barely time left for Brek to bathe and dress before the refectory closed. That was just as well, Noren thought; there would be fewer people to confront than had greeted him during his own first meal as a Scholar. One was not permitted to retreat from one’s new status; however great the strain, one was plunged immediately into the regular routine of Inner City life, and the adjustment was trying. It was supposed to be. Villagers and Outer City Technicians assumed that Scholars knew no hardship; the sooner a heretic learned that this was not the case, the sooner he could overcome his natural resistance to membership in a “privileged” caste. All the same, the traditional requirement that he appear in the Hall of Scholars’ refectory shortly after recantation, maintaining his poise while receiving with bewildered embarrassment the congratulations of men and women hitherto viewed as a class apart, imposed arduous demands.

Brek bore up well, though his face was set and he spoke little as he and Noren made the rounds of the occupied tables. “The first few days are rough,” Noren told him when they were settled with their food at a small table in a corner. “But once you get started on your training, you won’t have time to worry about anything else. And you’ll like it. Stefred says you’re well-fitted to become a scientist; you always wanted to do such work, didn’t you, even before you learned what the Scholars’ main job is?”